


A room you were in

by randomalia (spilinski)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: M/M, Multi, Pre-Episode: s01e09 The Empty Child, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 11:07:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4219422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spilinski/pseuds/randomalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You saw Algy not long after you arrived. Clean uniform, careful eyes; he had easy target written all over him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A room you were in

**Author's Note:**

> Jack/Algy, set not long before The Empty Child. We didn't get much info on Algy so I've taken some licence. The title is from Nostalgia by Mark Strand.

You make quick work of your story, when you have to tell it. You leave out the details that hang around the edges, that you were one of the first Time Agents, that you were one of the best. That you liked your job. Instead you telescope it down to what's important: something happened, you lost two years. Or rather, they were taken; it's all the same in the end. Now you work for yourself.

Your closest friend once said you were a bad influence. You laughed at him, at the hesitant way he looked out at life, and said there was no such thing. Maybe you reached out, threw a hand around his shoulder. Pulled him close. Night sky and startling lamplight on your faces.

It's probably not a memory but a dream, something you made up for a job and forgot to shake loose afterwards. You don't call anyone friend, it's too good and too quick; you've got a policy of get in, get out, get what you want. It's just that you have to fill in the blanks now and then.

It's nineteen-forty-one: Earth at war, women with skirts shifting around their knees and everyone expects American soldiers to be slick, loud, unrepentant. It works for you. It's no problem to get in, have everyone believing you're with the Air Force, have everyone eating out of your hand. You knew you could probably do that literally, because there was that one time on Eldura, but for now they call you sir and some few of them do like you ask, and call you Jack. There's no such thing as mixing business with pleasure: if you do it right they're the same thing.

Eleven at night not long before Christmas: you're sitting in a little hole-in-the-wall, sipping rare whisky and watching the door while up front a songstress winds her way around a smoky tune that's ancient to you, and you're thinking about how people are the same wherever and whenever you go. They can all do unexpected things to you. The world used to feel just a little too small, like you already knew everything you wanted and that you could have it. You don't remember when that changed.

You saw Algy not long after you arrived. Clean uniform, careful eyes; he had easy target written all over him. He'd signed up, he told you, for his country, and he was thirty-two. Very diligent. Surprising.

Occasionally you got a room to yourselves. Algy would smile up at up you, almost cheeky, expectant. All the fine pale skin, his faint ribs stuttering under your lips. Once he put the wireless on; it crackled and hummed around love and war and the air smelt like oil and the heavy wool of your uniforms. Once you were up against a wall, dark lane, the noises in his throat lost in the sudden flying whirl of the air raid siren; you pushed and rocked your hips, bit his jaw; didn't stop 'til the old thrumming motors drew high overhead and Algy remembered he'd abandoned his post. Reached out, pulled you closer, pressed a wild kiss to your chin; grabbed up his hat as he ran down the street. Littered night sky above and giant search lights sweeping the stars.

You've had a good time with a handful of the regiment and a few of the neighbours. (Alice at number twelve Mayberry has a thing for officers.) It's all part of the game, the charade, but you find yourself thinking about laying Algy out on a proper bed. Licking his cock, kissing his thighs, listening to the old English in his mouth and the way he says _Jack_ like he knows what it means.

Once he pulled on your coat, strong fingers on your lapel, and called you handsome. A handsome bastard, for an American, he said; bit of a grin. Clear sign you'd lingered too long in the job: you started to wonder how his life turned out (you're right here in nineteen-forty but you never stop thinking past tense for the people you meet). You can never tell him about your life, but you give him the short version and it's almost true. A military accident, you say; you suffered memory loss, left home and you've got no intention of going back. Maybe you'll see the world instead. You pushed him against the wall when he looked at you with something like admiration, like he was getting ideas. Algy's young. He still thinks being in the Army is the best thing he could do, just like his friends, his subordinates. All that pride and fear.

It's no concern of yours but some of these officers don't realise loyalty will come back to bite them. Some time, they're going to wake up and find they've lost something. Give them a little power and people start believing they can take whatever they like; too bad if you had other plans. Too bad if you wanted something different.

In the end Algy's just another detail to the story, and you already know you won't be telling it to anyone else.

*


End file.
